Is Google Drive the Next Pirate Bay?

Is Google Drive the Next Pirate Bay? Digital Piracy Lives On!

The federal government has been trying to crack down on digital piracy for years, and with their recent successes against AlphaBay and other “untouchables” they may finally be able to do so effectively. This increased pressures means that digital privateers must seek new waters and safe harbors if they want to keep distributing their plundered content without being thrown in the brig. So naturally they’ve turned to…Google Drive?

Yes, Google Drive! As odd as it seems, the giant corporation has been bombarded by take-down requests from various studios, publishing houses and copyright holders. Cloud storage platforms seem like an obvious choice for hosting illicit files, their ease of access and setup makes them ideal for quickly passing out a movie or TV show. Google Drive is the largest receiver of take-down requests, but they’re not the only service getting them. Dropbox, Mega and Microsoft’s OneDrive have all gotten take-down requests as well just not on the same scale as Google Drive. Google Drive has received some 4,700+ requests for content to be removed, while the other three have only gotten around ~250 requests.

These cyber buccaneers have used a variety of methods to get around Google’s automated scanner that’s supposed to detect this sort of content being uploaded and automatically remove it. They’ve encoded the files in strange ways to spoof the watchdog program, or uploaded blank documents with links to empty Cyber Security YouTube videos that have links in their description to the actual storage site. They’ve used text documents containing scrambled links stored in Google Drive to bring their content to their audiences. They’ve also used Google Maps as a pirating service, which is rather fitting if you think about it. Google Maps lacks the verification and content checking capabilities of Google Drive. Users can upload custom maps that contain links to the files or file sharing websites, and Google has no practical defense against it. Where there’s a will there’s a way it would seem.

Google and Microsoft have started working against pirate websites however, by removing their results from their search engines. In the UK websites such as PirateBay and others no longer appear in Google or Bing. The modified algorithm also directs users towards the normal channels of distribution for the content in question, so you may struggle to find that website that offers bulk deals on movies however. Google and Microsoft both claim this isn’t censorship as websites hosting pirated content aren’t technically removed from their search engine’s results. They’re relegated to the dregs of the search results instead, which might as well be the same thing. It will be interesting to see how this code affects targeted searches specifically for the pirated content.

It’s going to be an interesting race between pirates and tech companies as those wily scoundrels keep searching out new horizons to share their electronic plunder. Who knows where the next big file sharing gig will be setup, maybe MySpace will make a comeback as a the next PirateBay!

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